Sliphammer by Brian Garfield

twisted his body and rubbed and stroked her breast. She closed her eyes and cried out softly, arching her back. With a thunderclap of booming laughter he thrust her back onto the bed—she fell back splayed, squirming, moaning her panicky eagerness; she reached for his great stiff column and felt his throbbings alive in her hand.
    He put one knee-on the bed and came down, flattening himself against her, his hard, seeking organ pushing between her legs inside her wetness. She sucked and locked him in; her body twisted against him. They began to move together, slowly at first like a railroad engine getting purchase—a long, slow rhythm that filled her with exquisite agony—then faster, to a driving thud and crash of uncontrollable urgency, a hot, slick writhing of limbs and locked bodies flailing together in ecstasy: they came rigid together, so taut-crushed she felt her bones must break. She cried out, screamed with an agony of white-hot joy, feeling the spurt and ooze of him inside her; the roar of his voice blended with the thunder of blood in her ears.
    He did not roll away. They lay together, pulses drumming, lungs gasping. She felt the hungry cravings subside in logged satiety. She said, “Oh, God, let’s do it forever, it feels so damned good.”
    He could make her feel as though she was the only woman on earth. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed; he was still inside her and she didn’t want him to go. She said, “Know something?”
    â€œNot much.”
    â€œSometimes I hate your guts because I need you so bad. Nobody should have to need anybody as bad as I need you.”
    He ruffled her hair. “You’re a good girl,” he said, and rolled his weight off her. He lay back naked, his belly rising and falling gently. She felt as if she had been surgically wounded; she felt raw with the residues of high, sweet pleasure.
    After a while he sat up and looked down at her. She smiled almost shyly. Lying on her back, with her breasts diminished to the shape of inverted teacups, she knew she looked girlish and wistful. She felt somnolent pleasure, the soft glow of warmth, the temporary easing of lustful needs which soon would overcome her all over again.
    He did an unusual thing: he bent and very softly kissed her. And then he got off the bed and walked into the private bathroom that was part of the great carpeted suite.
    He was seldom so gentle with her; it made her feel strange and puzzled. She sat up, put her feet on the floor and walked to the mirror. She could feel the wet, draining stickiness between her thighs; she liked it there.
    She studied herself in the mirror. She always liked to look at herself. Once, when she was sixteen, her father had caught her admiring herself naked in front of a mirror. He had grinned: “Don’t let that spoil, Josie. Be a shame to let it go to waste.” Her father had been like that. She wondered how he had been able to stand her prude of a mother. There were rumors about the women he was supposed to be keeping on the side, particularly a red-haired wench down on Mission Street. It didn’t matter any more; he had died when she was nineteen and after that, all that mattered to her was to get away from her mother; she had joined the traveling troupe, and she had met Wyatt.
    Her face in the mirror had a bright, hard, shiny-eyed after-sex look. She thought, There really wasn’t much else than this; you went through the rest of the time just waiting for this.
    He came out of the bathroom naked. He wasn’t smiling; he wasn’t looking at her: his mind had moved on to other things. She was struck by the sudden fear that his gentle gesture a few moments ago had been the sort of thing a man might do if he felt guilty about something. Was he getting weary of her? She felt a moment’s horror. She had always tried to ignore the dark cranny of her mind which housed the suspicion that what, to her, was both serious and